


I Solemnly Swear

by DetectiveRoboRyan



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Babies, Contains One Fankid, Fluff, Gen, Pre-Canon, Sad In Hindsight, Sisterly bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 19:22:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5882566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DetectiveRoboRyan/pseuds/DetectiveRoboRyan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lissa and Emmeryn share a conversation about the past, the present, and to some extent, the future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Solemnly Swear

**Author's Note:**

> Let's be real: Emmeryn would be the best mom.

Lissa knew there was still time to decide, but she was sure now that she was never going to have kids.  
  
As the youngest, she'd never had much firsthand experience with babies. She'd always been the baby, and even if Ricken was younger than her, three months was barely a difference at all. Even once Emmeryn had her first child, there just wasn't much you could do with a newborn if you weren't its mother than hold it and watch it wriggle, looking vaguely uncomfortable with its surroundings, until your arms got tired and you got reprimanded for the fourth time not to let the baby's head droop. And after that it was just boring, because all babies even did was eat and sleep. Lissa still didn't see what the big deal was.  
  
Once they got older, it was a little more entertaining. Though the only baby Lissa had ever had actual experience with was her nephew, so she couldn't speak for all babies. At the very least, August was quiet and well-behaved— from what Lissa had heard everyone saying to Emmeryn, this was a blessing.   
  
Whatever it was they were saying, Emmeryn didn't seem to care, and Lissa admired that. Emmeryn didn't seem to care about anything anybody else said, in Lissa's experience watching her sister. Her immediate reaction to being told she couldn't do something was to do it anyway, and Lissa had grown to understand that it must've taken a lot of strength. Lissa admired that— how someone could be so incredibly stubborn and yet so graceful about it.  
  
It wasn't fair, but Lissa couldn't help but compare herself to Emmeryn sometimes. Even now, bouncing a two-year-old on her knee as she went over Exaltly paperwork, her reading glasses perched on her nose and her crown set on the tea tray (specifically because the rest of the Council told her that circlets do not go on tea trays) right next to the little silver ring Phila had given her on their wedding day, she seemed ten times more serene and graceful than Lissa could ever be.  
  
Lissa couldn't help but sigh a little, glancing back to her textbook on battlefield healing, which was getting more and more boring by the second. Even if she couldn't fight worth beans, she would've given her right hand to be outside with Chrom and Frederick. At least then she'd be moving, and not sitting inside watching August drool all over the shortbread in his mouth.   
  
Emmeryn, like always, seemed to know exactly what to say. "I've heard the Shepherds are bound for the southern borders next," she brought up, inciting a conversation with practiced nonchalance. "That sounds interesting." Not that she knew anything what happened at the borders, aside from the stories Phila had told her.  
  
Lissa nodded, looking back at Emmeryn over her book. "Chrom told me there've been bandit attacks on villages near there. Nobody's died yet, but it doesn't hurt to be careful, right?"  
  
"Of course not," Emmeryn agreed, glancing at Lissa with that ever-present sparkle of kindness in her eyes. "And now that you're going with them, they'll have a reliable healer."  
  
Lissa grinned sheepishly, her shoulders lifting. "Well, Maribelle's been doing really well, too," she admitted. "But since we're looking to recruit as well, one healer isn't enough as of now. So I can't stay here studying the craft forever, right? I want to learn more in the field."  
  
 "A wise choice," Emmeryn nodded, setting her quill down and wiping soggy cookie crumbs off of August's pink cheeks with her thumb. "There's only so much you can learn from books. They say experience is the wisest teacher, after all."  
  
Lissa nodded. "I want to help real people," she said enthusiastically. "Chrom keeps telling me it's dangerous, but isn't that the point? I'm not gonna learn anything if I stick to watching the priests in the north wing."  
  
Emmeryn hummed. She hated to admit it, but she hadn't much liked the idea of her youngest sister heading off to battle. She hadn't liked the idea of Chrom forming the Shepherds at all, and her heart still stopped when reports of incidents came back, only resuming when it was made clear there were no casualties. Emmeryn understood that things happened, but that didn't mean she had to like the idea of sending her loved ones into the fray— even if, thus far, there was no real fray to speak of. At least Lissa had chosen to heal with her hands instead of hurt.  
  
August squawked, an unintelligible sound he didn't know he was making, reaching for the plate of shortbread on the tea tray and moving his little hand in a grabbing motion. He looked up at Emmeryn and squawked again, revealing his tiny teeth that hadn't quite grown into his mouth yet. Emmeryn knew that meant he wanted another cookie, although anyone could figure that. But he'd already had one, and probably didn't need another. That little drooly grin of his could've suckered Phila, who had been in love since the first day she saw the little boy (her son, she kept repeating), but Emm didn't let August get his way so easily.  
  
"No," Emmeryn said to him, setting down her quill and gesturing with the hand that wasn't holding him on her lap. "No more."  
  
August repeated the gesture with his tiny hand, and Emm did it a few more times for emphasis until he decided that he wasn't going to get another cookie, and popped two of his fingers in his mouth instead. That crisis averted, Emmeryn shook a strand of hair out of her face and adjusted her glasses.  
  
Lissa had leaned forwards, her elbows on the table and her chubby cheeks pillowed on her fists. "I don't know how you do it, Emm," she sighed.  
  
"How I do what?" Emm asked, quirking a brow.  
  
"Do two things at once," Lissa clarified. "Like, you're doing paperwork and looking after August. It seems to me those two things would be things you do separately, but you can do them both just fine at the same time."  
  
Emmeryn shrugged. "Practice, I suppose," she admitted, scratching out her signature on one sheet of parchment. "I used to do this with you, too, when you were a baby. You'd never take your naps otherwise."  
  
"I don't remember that," Lissa grumbled. "Was I really that fussy, Emm?"  
  
"Oh, the fussiest," Emm drawled, in the exact way that Lissa knew she was teasing. "You were always wanting something or other, hardly ever appeased. Quite the handful, if you ask me."  
 Lissa pouted. "Emm, don't tease!"  
  
Emmeryn chuckled. "I'm not all wrong, you know," she admitted, shifting August on her lap. "But you've grown up quite a lot since then."  
  
Lissa couldn't help but think that she'd still never be quite as grown-up as Emmeryn— not because Emmeryn was ten years older than her, because that was certainly a factor, but because they'd had such different experiences growing up. At fifteen years old, Lissa was the young princess of Ylisse, youngest sibling of the Exalt, a young girl with baby fat in her cheeks and stomach and an attitude that was decidedly less mature even among others her age. Whereas Emmeryn, at fifteen, had assumed the position of Exalt full-time and devoted practically every waking moment to serving her people. Her biggest dilemma at the time was something that'd change the fate of a country, and Lissa's was what she wanted for breakfast.  
  
"Yeah, I guess," Lissa admitted. "Still, though. Everyone says I still have a lot to learn, and I guess they're right."  
  
"We all learn things all our lives," Emmeryn said, in that wise, patient voice Lissa could swear she'd had since she was ten. "It has nothing to do with how grown-up we are."  
  
"Easy for you to say," Lissa sighed. "You're the most grown-up and responsible person I know. What'd Ylisse be without you, after all? I can't speak for everyone, but I don't really know what I'd do, that's for sure."  
  
"I don't intend to drop dead in a year, you know," Emmeryn replied, hitting the nail on the head before Lissa even realized that was what the nail was. "I wouldn't leave you and Chrom until I'm good and ready— and until you're good and ready."  
  
"Can you promise that?" Lissa asked. Of course Emmeryn couldn't— even Emmeryn couldn't deny the inevitability of death. But Lissa could ask.  
  
Emm chuckled, holding up one hand. "Alright, fine. I, Exalt Emmeryn of Ylisse, solemnly swear not to die until my siblings are ready and able to handle themselves and the country of Ylisse without my help."  
  
"And until you know your kids will be taken care of," Lissa added. "Can't forget that."  
  
"And until I know August and Phobos will be taken care of in my stead," Emmeryn continued. "There. How was that?"  
  
Lissa grinned. "Perfect," she decided. "And don't you go back on that, okay, Emm? You solemnly swore."  
  
"I solemnly swear," Emmeryn repeated, smiling a little.  
  
Lissa didn't say it, but that promise meant more to her than words could really say.

**Author's Note:**

> If you wanna know what happens to Emm and Phila's kids after this, read my fic 'The End Days.' They're in it and so are Emm and Phila, to an extent.


End file.
